Watts's b&w illustrations of spindly characters, cryptic shadows, and cramped corridors amplify the unsettling ambiance, and her roach motif may have readers checking their arms. Legrand gives Victoria's mission a prickly energy, and her descriptions of the sighing, heaving home a character in itself are the stuff of bad dreams. Hair-raising adventures involving slimy hidden passageways, pinching swarms of cockroaches, mystery meat, and the wrath of cruel Mrs. Cavendish and a fiendish gardener/assistant. Victoria unravels the mystery behind the titular home for children, which is run by the ageless Mrs. Simon & Schuster, 16.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4424-6601-2 Finley, 11, is sent to spend her summer at Hart House, her estranged grandparents’ country estate, while her parents deal. Twelve-year-old perfectionist Victoria Wright has bouncy curls, a fixation on achieving straight As, and just one friend unkempt, artistic Lawrence, who she considers her "personal project." But when Lawrence disappears, and Victoria launches an investigation to find him, she discovers more frightening trouble than she imagined. The too-serene-to-be-true town of Belleville harbors some creepy secrets in Legrand's debut, a sinister and occasionally playful tale of suspense.
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